You’ll have a hard time finding two men in the film world that have more respect for each other than Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. However, just because you like and respect each other, doesn’t mean you’re always going to see eye to eye on everything. It appears such is the case with how the two giants view Indiana Jones and where they should go next.
The people at The Sunday Times have these quotes from Lucas when talking about the possibility of an Indiana Jones 5:
“Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.”
“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”
Now here’s the thing that no one will agree with anymore, but I still hold to it… I think George Lucas is still the best story concept guy in the movie business. He’s a piss poor director, but on the basic foundations his stories rule. Hell, even the Star Wars prequels… if you look at them each as 3-4 page outlines, the stories are BRILLIANT… but he ruined the movies by directing them himself… which he just has no knack for anymore.
So if you ask me (which no one is), everyone should take their hands off Indiana Jones EXCEPT Lucas, and then once he has his story, he should take his hands totally off it and hand it over to Spielberg to direct and make it. Two guys butting heads isn’t the way to make great cinema… Indy 4 proves that point. Just my two cents worth.
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John I actually agree with you when it comes to Lucas. However, I enjoyed Indy 4. I would like to see more but only if they focus on Indy and NOT the son of Indy!
“..they already nuked the fridge”
This is so true. I don’t think there’s any going back. Indy is dead.
*sniff sniff* (wipes a tear from my eye)
Nuke a bathtub next.
Lucas says: “Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.”
Is he talking about Steven?
Steven already made “Jaws” and “Close Encounters” before “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”, so by that time he wasn’t just Lucas henchmen.
This Fillion delusion has to stop. I like Fillion. He is a fine actor but these comparisons to Ford have to stop. He has nowhere near the charisma or screen presence as Ford. Ford, in his prime, was in a completely different league to Fillion.
That is why Ford is one of the most successful actors of all time and Fillion is a third string character on Desperate Housewives.
Sure Ford has lost his way over the years and its been a long time since he has done anything truly great but go watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and tell me that you seriously believe Fillion has the same amount of charm or charisma to pull that off?? Ridiculous.
“Piss poor director” is a tad harsh. I think he’s the best action director in the business, aside from maybe Cameron. Every time I see an action setpiece in a movie, I compare it to Lucas, WAY to many directors are in love with close ups, dark settings, and fudging the establishment shots. In a George Lucas action scene, you always know where everyone is, what they’re doing, and the crap isn’t happening in shadows to keep you guessing.
Ummm…I’m not drinkin the Kool Aid on GL’s directing prowess. If you watch most of the DVD stuff on the prequels…He’s an insane micromanager. Of course most directors are, but GL takes it to a …wait. for. it…’Hole. Nutha. Level!
GL’s vision is best when it’s kept broad. But he gets truly bogged down in the details.
How about Radioland Murders? Labyrinth? People forget he was involved with these movies. Ofcourse, there was Howard the GD Duck, but I beleive everyone deserves a pass once in a while.
I just want GL to let us see what other directors visions of what Star Wars would be like.
I SOOO want to see Ridley Scott doing Tales of the Bounty Hunters, maybe Tony Scott doing Rogue Squadron, and maybe Robert Rodriguez doing Knights of the Old Republic. Gimme a series, and a movie every two years. Hell even Spielberg has an idea of what he’d like to do in the SW universe!!!
Lastly, most people forget that there once was this small Computer Animation studio created by GL…
I can’t believe Im going to say this, but what the heck! George Lucas has gone to the well way to many times and I don’t trust his creative ability anymore. As for Spielberg, no one was better in the mid 70’s to the early 90’s but he has lost his mojo. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a major disapointment for me, and I know Im not alone. It did what no other film in the franchise was able to do, and that was bore me. That’s coming from a guy who saw Temple of Doom 4 times in a theater. I love that film. Personally I’d like to see the reigns of this Franchise handed over to new talent who can breath some real creativity into it, and for me, that isn’t George and Steven!.
“I think George Lucas is still the best story concept guy in the movie business. He’s a piss poor director, but on the basic foundations his stories rule. Hell, even the Star Wars prequels… if you look at them each as 3-4 page outlines, the stories are BRILLIANT”
I completely agree. Just MY two cents worth!
“Now here’s the thing that no one will agree with anymore, but I still hold to it… I think George Lucas is still the best story concept guy in the movie business.”
I totally agree, John. That’s what I’ve been saying for years. Lucas is a phenomenal storyteller, but he’s a terrible WRITER. Look at Star Wars (and not just the prequels, mind you, though they are a clearer example). Any time there’s dialogue that isn’t written by someone else, any time there’s the actual nitty-gritty of moving a narrative forward, the films creak and groan and collapse under their own weight. But look at the overarching mythic storyline: the slow decay and collapse of the Republic, the rise of the Empire, the temptation, corruption and final redemption of Anakin Skywalker; it’s all great stuff, it’s a classic story, in the truest sense of that word. And look at moments like, say, the last few minutes of Attack of the Clones: there’s no dialogue, it’s all just picture, sound and music, and it’s breathtaking. THAT is what Lucas does best. He weaves a mythos and he puts kick-ass images up on the screen, but he falters terribly when there are words or actors involved.
In his defense, I’ve actually been reading a book called The Secret History of Star Wars (http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/) which, among other fascinating insights, reveals how open Lucas used to be about how much he hates writing, and how terrible he feels at it. The problem is that every time he’s brought someone else in to write down his thoughts for him, they never match up to what he sees in his head. For better or for worse, the guy feels like he can’t trust anyone else to put his vision down on paper. That’s something I can really sympathise with. I just wish he could *find* a way.
They should take a hint from a couple of the books and have Indy go looking for Atlantis or Noah’s Ark.
My biggest problem with IJ4 was the villains sucked. Cate looked like a dominatrix. I kept expecting her to ask if Indy had been a bad boy. The problem now is they can’t really go back to the Nazis.
But then again, they’ve already nuked the fridge…
Where to take it?….To the graveyard!
It’d be helpful knowing which ideas were Spielberg’s and which were Lucas’. I don’t think the article gives us any real perspective yet.
I don’t see why everyone’s making such a big deal of the alien thing. This franchise (novels and games included) is notorious for those moments where everything Indy doesn’t believe in comes right back to bite him in the butt. Gods, demons, aliens, dragons, ghosts… he’ll probably wrestle the Loch Ness Monster in the next movie. :)
I really wanted to like Indy 4 but I just can’t. I think they should leave the series as it is before they ruin it with another shitty movie.
Cate Blanchett was terrible. Shia was terrible. Ford phoned it in. The plot and dialogue were horrible and the action was WAY over the top, even for an Indy movie. The way that Shia swung on the vines with the monkeys was enough to ruin the movie for me.
And what the hell was with the ending?? I could get on board the whole alien storyline but it was handled very badly.
Lucas comes up with good story concepts, but they only succeed, as you said, when he doesn’t direct AND (my two cents) when he doesn’t write. He’s a conceptualizer and that’s it.
so that’s why that movie sucked … because it was a compromise…
as calvin & hobbes once said:
a good compromise, satisfies no one
How can Lucas claim to be “in the future” when all he’s done is Star Wars and Indiana Jones for the last thirty years.
If the Clone Wars movie turns out to be more like the original trilogy, I think we can safely say Mr. Lucas should stick to writing concepts and outlines, but give up scripting and directing his ideas.
Let Lucas write the outline, then let Spielberg fill in the holes with dialog and touch-up the story.
If Lucas wants to make an Indiana Jones movie about someone other than Indiana Jones, scrap the whole movie.
For all the talk they did about “finding the right script” prior to Indy 4, the one they seemed to settle on seemed pretty pisspoor. As in: Bad Indiana Jones fanfiction.
Parts of it worked well, but the movies strung around these moments was pretty poor, and felt more rushed than anything that has been 20 plus years in the wait should feel.
Isn’t it obvious that Spielberg is more open to making another one? He doesn’t want peoples memories tainted by this as the last outing of the Whipsnapper (OK, so noone calls him that… except me)
Oh yeah – and the overuse of CGI – whoever that was should be kept off a potential Indy sequel.
your exactly right john
Hey Britt,
Isn’t it possible that the reason Indy 4 didn’t meet expectations is because now Lucas had to get approval from Spielberg and Ford unlike the way it used to be? Remember, Indy 4 wasn’t Lucas’ alone… he wasn’t free to make the story he wanted.
John, totally agree with you about Lucas, and that’s what I’ve always said about the SW prequels. The overall story arc is fantastic. I just love it. But the actual scripts and the films themselves are pretty abysmal. It’s maddening.
With Indy 4, though, wow, it’s clear to me Lucas has lost it. I think we can read between the lines here and see that Spielberg was really working with his hands tied there, so I give him a pass. Indy is George’s baby, and I can understand him not wanting to give it up. But if I was Steven, I’d wipe my hands clean and move on. There’s no way in hell Lucas allows another great film to come out of one of his franchises. The combination of his enormous ego and his apparent total loss of competence (beyond writing a logline, and even that was dubious with Indy 4) makes Lucas a creative liability in my book.
To Rod – Hell yeah Nathan Fillion! He can take over Indy or Han Solo any day in my book. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I thought Ford totally mailed it in for most of Indy 4.
Spielberg wants to focus on Harrison Ford. Lucas wants to focus on Shia “Douchbag” Lebouf.
It’s a no-brainer. Ford is Indy. Pushing forward the series with a guy in a leather jacket who’s more preoccupied with his hair than the adventure is a MISTAKE.
I’d rather see a reboot of the series with someone like Nathan Fillion as Indy than an Indy movie where Ford is relegated to a background role. That’s just insulting.
Indy 4 was OK and I am glad they did it. I liked the whole idea of having HF playing a 20 years older Indy and the movie came out very well in this regard. I do believe though that 4 is enough. There is no point in doing a Indiana Jones movie without Ford playing the lead and making another one with the then 60 years old Indy would likely turn out like total self derision. Please don’t start some “son of Idiana Jones” series with Shia. He did good in 4 but its time to move on.
Also, I’m not sure how much faith I have left in Lucas and Spielberg. Lucas is all cliché. Its getting a little old.
exactly
Lucas should have no role in the ext movie and everyone should pretend that there were no aliens in the 4th movie. In fact they should just make a 4th movie again. Pretend the last one didnt happen.
i love goerge lucas, i LOVE his work, and speilberg. but people that i know hated the new indaina jones, i kinda liked it. but what i’m getting at is the classic indy films would be better for die hard fans. so for me i don’t know what idea i’m pulling for best. i can understand trying to take indy to a different place. but the classic indy seems better to me. so i think i’m with steven on this one.